Four Letter Words
by Imorb
Summary: Roxas was sick of his life, always making the RIGHT choices, doing the RIGHT thing. He wondered what would happen if he just LEFT. "Four letter words are always the best."


Four Letter Words

_Based on a true story._

By: Imorb

**WARNING!** This may have ideologically sensitive martial for some people.

* * *

Love & **H A T E**

The _best_ words have _**four**_ **L E T T E R S**

**

* * *

**

There was a clang of glass being broken and the sound of crazed screams as the door slammed behind him.

The blond sighed; it wasn't like it really mattered anymore, this was just too normal for him. Totally calm, he made his way towards the road; away from that damned house.

Roxas had learned a couple of things in his sixteen years. Keep the key to your heart around your own neck, your story hidden, your money safe, and if you were the kind of person to wear your heart on your sleeve, you better shove your hands deep in your pockets.

The key to Roxas's heart was really the key to his father's house, were he was headed now. Cloud had come home to his son unannounced at his house on countless occasions, so he wouldn't be too surprised.

His "story" was really just a bunch of little things he wrote here and there; things he wouldn't want his mother to read, so he hid them in his no-longer-working MP3 player. His mother had dropped it in the washing machine, and though it no longer played music, it could still be used to hold files. It usually sat in the pocket's of his jeans, waiting to be plugged into a computer.

His money was in the safest place he could think of putting it until he turned eighteen; sandwiched between his hip and the elastic of his boxers. If his mother ever found out he had it, he'd be sure to never see it again. And as for his emotions…

It really was always best to wear a mask…

Once when he was twelve a teacher had been looking around the room, asking if there were any questions about the assignment, as teachers tend to do. One kid raised his hand, his expression goofy. The teacher frowned at the boy and told him if he even though to waist her time with mindless questions, he could forget about it.

The boy pouted, "Auh, shucks! How could you tell?"

"I've been a teacher for over twenty years, I can usually read kids in an instant," And then the old, buggish lady's cold eyes landed on him. "Except you, I can never tell what you're thinking… you keep your face so well guarded."

Roxas's eyes met the woman's without fear, his lips trying their hardest to twitch into a smirk, even if it hurt to try to change expression. It was just wasted energy to him. "No one can."

* * *

A truck zoomed by him, making his yellow spikes move in the small gust of wind created by its speed. Roxas sang lightly to himself, holding his thumb out to any vehicle that went by in the hopes he'd get lucky and be able to bum a ride; he never did.

Instead he enjoyed the scenery; his deep blue eyes soaking in the endless fields of hay and corn that stretched out on either side of the road, and the tall mountains that surrounded his little world on all sides. The sun beat down hard on the asphalt, making every short little stretch of shade cherished, and every little patch of water from the drainage ditches graciously welcomed. Roxas never told his mother how he survived those long walks to his dad's without having any water on him; it would just give her something else to flip about.

Since Roxas was eight, he had began to distaste his mother. Maybe it was because she started drinking more, or was it the smoking? It could have been the drugs. Or maybe all three? Perhaps he just started realizing that Larxene was an asshole.

At first, the blond felt bad about the way he thought of his mother. Every day he would tell himself, 'Today I won't fight with mommy, today I won't fight with mommy.' They always did. Slowly he had started to think of his mother as an obligation, something he had to live through every day so he could go to school to learn and grow so he could get away as fast as he could.

It didn't get really bad until the summer he turned thirteen. The day when his mother asked if he was gay.

"No, I'm bi."

He was a disgrace to the family. A disgrace to **god**! He was _worse _than a whore, **_worse _**than a gay! He'd fuck anything for the sake of fucking because it just didn't _matter _to him. His hormones were messed up, he was screwed up in the head; he needed a doctor. He made-out with all his friends when she wasn't looking. How could Roxas have done this to her? Why had he **_decided_** to be a fuck up?

"Don't you understand mom- he hated calling her that - I don't love people because of their gender or appearance, but for who they are! Because they're a good person, and I think if god didn't want me to love, he wouldn't make me this way."

He was possessed by the devil.

That's when the running started, when this road started to become more familiar than it ever had been zipping down it fifty miles over the speed limit in the passenger seat of his mother's car as she chattered on about how horrible her life was. ("Look at _me_, _look _at me!" Roxas didn't want to. ) No job, no money, not enough drugs, how ugly she was, how everyone wanted to fuck her, not enough hot guys any more, his father was a pig that she wished she never had sex with.

But Roxas was her angel. Roxas was the only reason she lived, her 'gift from god'. Oh, he was born with a purpose, he wasn't an accident _at all!_ He'd been born out of jealousy, to make some rich fuck want his scancky mother back.

She called everyone 'honey', everyone but Roxas. The police men, and the guy behind the counter at the liquor store, and the drug dealers, and the whores, and just plain anyone. "Hey honey," it had a sickeningly fake sweetness to it.

Larxene always took Roxas with her when she went to get her almost daily fix of narcotics, even after he was more then old enough to stay home. It was fucked up, what kind of parent made their kid go sit in the car while they got drugs? But she was lonely, so he had to go. Not that it mattered much, Roxas never spoke, merely nodded when necessary.

He just turned away, looked out the window and pretended he was anywhere but next to his mother, in the slums of some city, as some overweight black man slid her addictions to her.

The first time he ran away, he wasn't really sure what he was going to do. All he had was his MP3 player with his stories, a pack of matches, and key he would probably never use again. Because Larxene would probably tell his father too, and even though Cloud had never said anything to Roxas about it, he was sure the man would shoot him if he were to know the truth.

But he kept going; maybe he could get to Kairi's, she knew, she didn't care. It was probably the first place Larxene would look for him, and he didn't want to get her involved. He'd just stop quick; get a bag and fill it with water bottles, and food, and maybe even a little blanket. Then he'd skip town; try to find a job that would hire a kid without working papers yet.

Roxas had almost made it, he was only a few roads away when his mother pulled him over in her old silver bucket of bolts.

"Get in the car, now."

"Go away, I told you I was leaving." he growled, continuing to walk along side the road.

"Oh, so you think you're so **independent**! _Running away!_" the blond woman spat, "Not like it would matter if a guy or a girl picked you up and raped you, since you're bisexual."

His brows tightened, "I'm not like that, mother. " He knew she hated it when he called her that. She didn't like mom either, she had to be 'mommy'; Roxas hated all three.

"I said get in the _fucking _car!"

Roxas wished he never had.

She drove back to the almost-fallen-down farm house that they lived in only because the man had owned it had been the father of Roxas's blind, older half-sister, Namine. He was a quiet man by the name of Leon; he worked on his cows and his fields, and did pretty much whatever Larxene wanted or she'd take him to court for not being able to afford paying for all of Namine's high priced health care.

Larxene stopped the car behind one of the big pine trees that hid the one side of the house and turned to him, acting like nothing had happened.

"Now sweetie," she said. "I know your hormones are a little weird at your age, and I've noticed you've been changing, but you don't really have any pubic hair… I think you might have a little hormone deficiency is all. The doctors will give you some pills and make it all better." She patted his spikes lightly, making him cringe. "Oh, and Roxas? Tell all your little friends you were lying. It was all just a big joke, ha ha ha. Okay? I don't need the whole town coming up to me saying how my son's a _freak_."

They never talked directly about it again. It was always just, "Roxas's hormone deviancy".

Bull. Completely bull.

His mother sent him away to his father's for two weeks after that. He was okay with that. He got up early, said bye to his dad, and started his day of cleaning and taking care of the dog. Larxene always asked why he wasn't so enthused about cleaning when he was at her house. The answer was simple, Cloud deserved it. He worked his ass off every day, pouring concrete and cutting rebar. He didn't force Roxas to do chores, and didn't yell at him if he didn't, simply thanked him if he did.

His mother always threatened him about going to live his dad, because she knew the idea scared him a little. The blond might be able to live with his father better, but there was still that fear.

The fear of his very first memory.

Roxas was three years old, and his mother was driving fast (nothing unusual there). His father was behind them, and he had a gun. The glass shattered, and there'd been screaming. It was blurry, fogged from many concussions, but the fear was there and never going away.

* * *

Roxas sat on an old porch of a house at least two hundred years old. It had been passed down from one Strife to another for generations. It was perhaps a mere fifteen feet from the road, a mill across from it, and the never ending sound of splashes from the waterfall caressed his ears.

Before she had died, the blond's grandmother had lived in this house for many years. She'd been a nutty old bat, cramming as many frog stuffies as she could get her hands on into the ancient home. Every year for Halloween she'd buy like sixty pumpkins, crave them all, and then put them out across the bridge to town for everyone to see. She kept anything imaginable for 'art projects'; from Pringles cans to the newspaper wrappers.

The day she died he named Black Valentine's.

* * *

_Lust_ & **Pain**

_F E E L I N G S_ that will **_never_** end

* * *

Roxas had forgotten a lot from before he was eight. What was left were all very odd memories, because they were all in third person, as though someone else had been watching his young self. Another odd thing was they were mostly of him getting hurt.

Falling head first off his great aunt's porch into a flower pot, clashing his head really hard onto the counter one Christmas morning, and worst of all was when his older cousin took him into a public bathroom and made him stick his fingers up his ass. He hadn't understood it at the time, but all he knew was that he would be hurt if he didn't.

Roxas remembered being happy. He had no memories of _being _happy, but he knew he was, and he wanted to be that way again. Sometimes he wondered if the real Roxas died when he hit his head too hard and the weird creature that had been watching the poor boy's misery took over his body afterwards. It was a gruesome thought, but it seemed more possible everyday.

"You aren't _Roxas_! You aren't my _son_!" How many times had his mother- had Larxene screamed that? Hundreds. Thousands. Countless times.

The yellow haired boy gritted his teeth, he could feel new blisters forming on his feet, and the patterns on his arms were starting to sting.

X's.

X's crisscrossing his pale arms; X's over bruises, over burns, over skin. Some were gifts from his mother, but most were on his own accord.

Walking down the long stretches over road he stopped at a fork in the road. He didn't know why he didn't just keep going, his father's was only a couple roads down from the right. Instead he just stared. He should go the right way, like he'd been doing his whole life. Making the **right **choices, going down the **right **path.

He suddenly started to run, flying down the road like never before. The left. The left path; because he was sick of doing the right thing, and right had just too many letters for him. Good words always had four letters.

After some time, his pace slowed. It was dark and he had no clue where he was.

* * *

WHAT IS **L E F T **OF MY _L I F E?_

* * *

As usual, he stuck his thumb out, hoping he'd have some luck, though he knew he wouldn't.

Roxas's legs started to hurt and he was getting dizzy and he just wanted to lie down and fall sleep. Just as he thought he might die from exhaustion, a glow started to come closer. Bright, glowing, headlights that felt too painfully beaming for Roxas's blue eyes.

It started to slow as it got closer, and then stopped directly in front of the teenager. At first he was afraid, what if it was a murderer, or worse, his mother?

A tinted window was rolled down, and pale skin and the gleam of green eyes shown. "Hey kid, get in." said a deep voice.

Without answering, Roxas obliged, making his way around to the other side of the car and getting in on the passenger side.

"Where you headed?" asked the voice.

Roxas closed his eyes closed his eyes tight, "Anywhere, anywhere but here."

The voice laughed, "No where in particular?"

"No."

It was silent after that, and the man continued driving down the unknown road. When the blond was just about to give into sleep, he forced one of his cobalt eyes open. "What's your name?"

The man hummed lightly, "Axel."

Roxas smiled, because it was okay now, he knew it was okay. Eyes slipping shut once more he said, "Four letter words are the best."


End file.
